


The Sea And The Snowdrop

by slaparoniandcheese



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: (been busy sorry yall), AU, Are These Biblical Allusions Obvious Enough, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fantasy, Gen, Non-Sexual Slavery, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Prologue has been edited slightly to fix some errors, Slow Burn, They all have issues tbh, Warnings May Change, are not gonna wanna cooperate, because im salty the writers never rly did much w that, chen is a snake cultist its just too easy, dsbfdjhbfj, i can already tell the first couple chapters, i promise i'll get in the swing of things, im going to kill chen with my bare hands, short first chapter, skylor has issues, so please have patience jdksj, which is v important to the plot, zane has issues, zane is a seer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2020-11-07 18:43:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20822045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slaparoniandcheese/pseuds/slaparoniandcheese
Summary: There was someone watching between the birches.





	1. Prologue: The Fall

There was someone watching him between the birches.

The child had been playing out in the cool autumn air, thoroughly entertained by a family of birds he discovered to be nesting the heart of a currant bush. The color of the berries called up vivid memories of cough syrup swallowed in times of sickness, sending shivers up his spine. He turned away to search out a worm for the birds, and in doing so he glimpsed an unfamiliar head of inky hair a short distance away, observing him from a space behind the narrow trees. The individual hadn’t appeared to be putting much effort into hiding. In fact, when the young boy looked at him, he stared straight back, appearing decidedly unbothered. He didn’t seem scary - not in the way bad people were supposed to, as far as the child was aware. But he had been warned many, many times in his five years not to let anyone get too good a look at him, nor to indulge in people’s questions about him or where he resided.

He asserted his sentiments with an unsure conjunction of timidness and shameless honesty. “I-I want you to go away, please.”

At first the man look almost wounded, but then curled the corners of his mouth upward as though somehow amused. “Oh? Why is that?”

“My father says I’m not supposed to speak to strangers.”

At first, the only thing he received in response was an oddly fond but exasperated sigh, as if he had said something clearly very silly, the sound followed by a disbelieving quirk of the brow. “Did your father truly say not to speak to strangers?”

“I may play in the forest if I promise not to wander too far from home, but my daddy says, ‘You must not talk to strangers or leave the forest. If you do, you will surely be taken from me.’”

The stronger scoffed and said, “You will not surely be taken! Your father wants to protect you, but of course he knows that if you go out into the world then your eyes will be opened by what you see, and you will become wise like him. Don’t you want to be smart like him? I’m sure it would make him very proud if you returned home knowing more than you left with.”

The child shuffled his feet in the dewey grass, restlessly nudging blooms of monkshood and begonias with the edges of his shoes. He twisted his lips and averted his eyes, considering. “It will make my father happy?” He inquired after a moment’s hesitation. “But then why-”

“Oh yes, little one,” the other reassured, “very happy. And - “ he added hurriedly, “I have a daughter around your age, perhaps two or three years older. You must get very lonely out here all by yourself, with no other children in sight. I’m sure you would benefit from having a playmate.”

The boy’s strange, large eyes illuminated with renewed vigour and curiosity. “What’s her name?”

“Hmm?” The man hummed, somehow appearing both absent minded and calculating all at once. “Who?”

“Your daughter.”

“My daughter?” he asked, as if confused as to why the child would be even the slightest bit interested. “Oh! Yes, I’d... lost track. She turned eight not too long ago. Skylor. I’m not a fan of the name myself, but her… mother insisted on it.”

Skylor, he echoed in his head, committing the name to memory. His father tried very hard to keep him entertained, he knew, but the boy had always quietly (or sometimes not very quietly at all) yearned for a friend. He tossed the proposal back and forth in his head, feeling a bit like a paper boat thrown about by waters far too vast for its size. 

Daddy will be very happy, he abruptly recalled, though he couldn’t help feeling as though the thought hadn’t quite come from his own head.

When the child looked up the stranger was closer, suddenly, than he had been before. The man was watching him very intently now, gaze set unfalteringly on his face.

The paper boat toppled.

“Is your house all the way into town?” He asked worriedly.

“It’s not too far, little one. And then you can come back and tell your father all about your special adventure.” He offered his hand and the smaller figure accepted it eagerly.

Up close, the first thing that stuck out to him was the clothing that hung on the man’s body. The cluster of metallic embellishments and too-bright colors didn’t seem fitting for walks in the forest, but he liked the way the arrangements sparkled in the sun, and wondered pensively if everyone dressed like outside of the forest.

As he walked alongside his new friend, first through familiar orchards and then into lengths of grass he didn’t recognize at all, he eyed at the birches that enveloped them, crowding their path like a perpetual mist. The leaves, he noticed with earnest satisfaction, were beginning to turn yellow with the coming fall.


	2. Old Black Train

A hot splash of green tea ran down Nya’s arm and onto her leg as she wrestled to pile onto the teeming train, one body in a stumbling herd of sleepy travellers. Behind her, Kai was crouching under the entryway, looking for all the world like he had just rolled out of bed and into a ditch on the countryside, but she reserved most of her sympathy for Cole. With his broad shoulders and staggering height, it was kind of like watching a bull try to squeeze through the neck of a coke bottle. Jay led the group with a vigor that would have been impressive at eight in the morning if it wasn’t so obnoxious, bumping carelessly into clusters of passengers and chattering to no one in particular. On any other day the brunette would be declaring his grievances with a certain grandeur that could only be alleviated by a cup of tarry black coffee, but the motives of this particular trip had him buzzing like a greyhound with a rabbit.

The group elbowed their way into a vacant car, pushing suitcases onto sunken shelves and spreading out on spongy leather-wrapped seats. There was plenty of room to spare, but they all figured it was unlikely that anyone would be eager to fill in the empty spaces between a cluster of college students. If their age didn’t throw people off, Kai’s early-morning death glare probably would. As expected, a few small groups passed by, peeking in consideringly at the empty seats, but quickly passed. 

Nya fixed her eyes on the stiff, subtle peels that trembled in the uppermost corners of the wall as the train jolted to life, the last of the passengers presumably having settled in. It looked like it used to be expensive; the tone was rich and warm, the color of boysenberry syrup sunk deep into the flesh of a hotcake, textured with since-withered etchings of silver-white laurels. 

Pretty. 

The train crooned in an ancient voice as it pushed off, and Nya stretched out her legs with a formidable yawn. Cole snorted behind his book and she kicked him playfully in the calf. She glanced over to Kai, who she could tell was already growing restless. He got sick off of trains, cars, boats, and pretty much every other mode of transportation there was. Knowing he would get irritated if she made a scene (embarrassed, actually, not that he’d ever admit it), she simply shared a glance with him and offered a rotating thumbs up.  _ You okay? _

He nodded, looking only slightly ill, and stretched out his legs like a sunning cat. Next to him Jay continued to prattle on about… whatever he was talking about. Nya was pretty sure they had collectively begun unashamedly tuning him out about halfway to the station, as any good friends should, but he was harder to ignore now that they weren’t surrounded by crowds of people. At the sound of her name she turned to him. “What?” 

“Do you think she would be cool with it? Since you guys are friends and everything?”

Nya’s face pinched. “I’m not helping you hit on Skylor, Jay. That’s gross.”

“I’m not going to  _ hit on her _ ,” Jay sputtered, affronted, eliciting a satisfied snicker from Kai, who was suddenly looking significantly less ill. “Were you guys even listening to anything I was saying?”

“No.” Cole supplied kindly, and Jay glared. 

“I - how - aren’t you even a little bit interested?”

“Nope.”

“But it’s  _ so cool _ .”

“It’s kind of not.” Kai stated, somehow managing to come across as both bored and entertained all at once.

“It  _ is.  _ It’s like… I don’t know, but the scientific implications haven’t been explored, and now I’m going to have a chance to do that. I mean, sure, there have been speculations, but nobody’s taken a chance to properly research them in person. Not so closely.” 

“You know, Jay, I think it’s a real shame that you missed your calling of scientific villainy.” Cole stated, tilting his head back and observing the dark ceiling with dry matter-of-factness. 

“I’m not doing anything wrong!” 

“Oh, alright. As long as the human experimentation you’re planning on doing isn’t  _ wrong  _ or anything, then that’s just fine. Carry on.”

Jay huffed and sat up to look Cole squarely in the eye. “You say that like I’m planning on locking someone in a cage and poking them with sticks or something.” 

“I mean-”

Jay plopped back down with a defeated groan. “I give up. You guys are the worst.” He paused. “It’s not like they’re exactly human, anyway-” he started, but backed off when he received three testy looks in response. “Not that that changes anything, but I’m just saying. Scientific accuracy and all.” 

“Mhm.” Nya mumbled with weary sarcasm, shoving her hands comfortably into her coat pockets and letting her eyes close under the rock of the train. As the early morning exhaustion and the homely warmth of the car caught up to her, she allowed her mind to drift away, willing it to be carried into silence by the machine’s rhythmic sway.

When Nya woke, the monstrous skyscrapers and glaring neon lights outside of her window had since shifted into potent canola fields and, soon after, modest businesses and middle-class homes backed by slim grey streets. It had begun to drizzle: wispy white clouds, flat as postcards, replaced by thick grey ones. She groaned and lifted her head from the wall, wincing at the crick in her neck and the ache in her leg. Adjacent to her, Cole’s hood was pulled down over his head as he snored softly, arms folded and undoubtedly the most comfortable out of all of them. Nya would be willing to testify in federal court that the man could sleep through a hurricane. Jay, on the other hand, looked like he had just woken up, forehead creased and a harsh red mark left behind on his cheek from the wall. Nya nearly laughed at his exaggerated grimace and overturned beanie, but doubted she looked much better. As they met eyes, the two shared a knowing look, each thinking the same thing. 

“So,” Nya began. “Who wants to wake up Cole?” 

At this, Kai paused lazily scrolling through his phone and spared an uncaring glance as he kicked Cole’s book off of his lap. The novel (hardback, unfortunately) landed on the floor with a flat  _ bang,  _ and Cole jerked awake, looking like a deer in the headlights. He groaned blearily as soon as he processed the scene and stretched with a resounding yawn, only pausing to scowl at Kai and Jay, whose guffawing pinned them as the most likely culprits. Outside, voices clarified and motions crescendoed as the train finally went still and passengers began assembling their necessities. 

As the group of friends stood, collecting jackets and hats, Kai glanced regretfully between his empty cup and the garbage can next to the door. Nya eyed him with more than a hint of judgement.

“Kai. I don’t know how to tell you this, but your Starbucks is not going to refill itself just because you want it to.”

Kai threw her with a pained expression before dropping the cup away with an air of genuine grievance, like a puppy releasing a treasured toy. Cole nodded and patted his shoulder sympathetically. “You’re so brave.”

“Shut up.”

Jay cackled as he pulled a tan backpack and a navy blue suitcase from the luggage stack. 

Toting suitcases and fighting with tangled earbuds, they shambled through the station, laughing and grumbling about the weather, respectively, until they reached the open pavement beyond its confines. Dodging herds of busybody holidaymakers and ducking under hurriedly retrieved umbrellas, they shielded themselves from the autumn rain. Looking out, Nya found herself almost struck with the change in setting that a single train ride could bring. Ahead, rain-spotted streets curved upwards to fit the rolling terrain, like grey domes. In the city, neon lights pulled thinly upwards into the sky, like taffy, illuminating the world below with a perpetual cyan glow. Here, there were no glass buildings or sirens to engulf them, and it seemed like the dim weather saturated everything in sight.

Nya hoped the drizzle would stay that way - just a drizzle - but luck was apparently not on her side, and about halfway into their journey the sky began to bawl over them with the viciousness of a scorned lover. She maneuvered her umbrella awkwardly over her shoulder to look at her phone, lamenting at the blank screen.

No new messages. 

She wiped off a few stray raindrops with her sleeve and tucked it back into her pocket.

On cue, Kai tapped her shoulder, looking a bit like a disgruntled cat. “Any idea where we’re supposed to  _ be? _ ” 

Cole rolled his eyes. “Be patient, man.”

Kai bristled. “‘Be patient’- it’s freezing! It’s, like, ten degrees!”

“It’s forty seven, actually. But sure.” Nya laughed. 

“It’s  _ raining _ .”

“You’ve lived through rain before, Kai.”

“Barely.”

Nya snorted. “I’m still waiting on a text back from Skylor. She was supposed to tell us where to meet, but I think she forgot. Or work stuff came up and she can’t answer her phone.” Behind her, she heard the unmistakable splash of a puddle and the familiar sound of Kai and Jay squawking. 

Cole ignored them and lifted a skeptical brow. “Isn’t the whole point of being here that she’s supposed to be  _ off work _ ?”

She shrugged. “Things happen. You know how it is, especially with her.” Cole hummed in conformation.

Nya glanced around consideringly and grinned. “It’s a pretty small town. I guess if she gets arrested on battery charges word’ll spread pretty quick.” 

Cole huffed out a soft laugh. “They wouldn’t arrest her, Nya; she’s a Chen. She can get away with anything.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 800000 YEARS LATER SHE RETURNS  
Okay, I wanna warn yall that some of the characters start out kinda ethically questionable. I'm sure you noticed that with Jay, but I promise he's not some evil sociopath or whatever, and he (along with everyone else) will experience some major character development. So any hardcore Jay fans out there, this is my peace offering ✌️  
Anywho thanks for reading and please consider leaving a comment!


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